THREADED JOINT FOR AN OIL WELL PIPE

Abstract

Oil well pipe component comprising a threaded portion, at least part whereof is coated with a layer of a corrosion-inhibiting material, that has been applied to at least the part of the threaded portion of the oil well pipe component by means of a method comprising a cataphoresis step from an aqueous bath, said method comprisingproviding the oil well pipe component comprising a threaded portion; immersing at least part of the threaded portion of the pipe component in a cataphoresis bath comprising water and suspended particles of corrosion-inhibiting material, and provided with an anode and a cathode means, the pipe component being connected to the cathode means; inducing a current through the bath, in order to provide the corrosion-inhibiting material with a positive charge; depositing a layer of the positively charged corrosion-inhibiting material onto the pipe component; andremoving the immersed part of the pipe component with the layer of corrosion-inhibiting material from the cataphoresis bath and allowing the corrosion-inhibiting material to set.

Claims

1. Oil well pipe component comprising a threaded portion, being a sleeve-shaped coupling member for a cylindrical oil well pipe, comprising an internal threaded portion, or a cylindrical oil well pipe comprising an external threaded portion, wherein at least part of the threaded portion is coated with a layer of a corrosion-inhibiting material, that has been applied to at least the part of the threaded portion of the oil well pipe component by means of cataphoresis from an aqueous bath.

2. Pipe component according to claim 1, which is a sleeve-shaped coupling member for a cylindrical oil well pipe.

3. Pipe component according to claim 2, wherein the sleeve-shaped coupling member is provided with internal threaded portions at both ends of the sleeve, which portions are separated from one another by an unthreaded portion.

4. Pipe component according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein the layer of corrosion-inhibiting material is covered by an additional layer comprising a lubricant.

5. Pipe component according to any one of the preceding claims 1-3, wherein the layer of corrosion-inhibiting material further comprises a lubricant.

6. Pipe component according to claim 4 or 5, wherein the lubricant comprises particles of a solid lubricant.

7. Pipe component according to any one of claims 4 to 6, wherein the lubricant has been selected from molybdenum disulfide, tungsten disulfide, boron nitride, graphite, polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), and combinations thereof.

8. Pipe component according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein the corrosion-inhibiting material comprises a resin.

9. Pipe component according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein the corrosion-inhibiting material is selected from the group consisting of amino epoxy resins, amino-urethane resins and combinations thereof.

10. Pipe component according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein the corrosion-inhibiting material comprises one or more of the resins selected from the group consisting of polyolefins, saturated and unsaturated polyesters, alkyd resins, acrylic resins, phenolic resins, polyamides, epoxy resins and polyurethane resins.

11. Pipe component according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein the thickness of the layer of corrosion-inhibiting material is in the range of 10 to 30 m.

12. Pipe component according to any one of the preceding claims, which further at least partly comprises a phosphate layer between the layer of corrosion-inhibiting material and the threaded portion of the pipe component,

13. Pipe component according to claim 12, wherein the phosphate layer comprises one or more compounds selected from zinc phosphate, manganese phosphate, nickel phosphate and iron phosphate.

14. Method for coating an oil well pipe component comprising a threaded portion with a layer of a corrosion-inhibiting material, comprising providing a pipe component comprising a threaded portion being a sleeve-shaped coupling member for a cylindrical oil well pipe, comprising an internal threaded portion, or a cylindrical oil well pipe comprising an external threaded portion; immersing at least part of the threaded portion of the pipe component in a cataphoresis bath comprising water and suspended particles of corrosion-inhibiting material, and provided with an anode and a cathode means, the pipe component being connected to the cathode means; inducing a current through the bath, in order to provide the corrosion-inhibiting material with a positive charge; depositing a layer of the positively charged corrosion-inhibiting material onto the pipe component; and removing the immersed part of the pipe component with the layer of corrosion-inhibiting material from the cataphoresis bath and allowing the corrosion-inhibiting material to set.

15. Method according to claim 14, wherein the oil well pipe component comprising a threaded portion is a sleeve-shaped coupling member for a cylindrical oil well pipe.

16. Method according to claim 14 or 15, wherein the corrosion-inhibiting material comprises a resin, preferably selected from amino epoxy resins, amino-urethane resins and combinations thereof.

17. Method according to any one of the claims 14 to 16, wherein the pipe component has been subjected to a pre-treatment before being immersed into the cataphoresis bath, preferably at least one pre-treatment selected from the group consisting of degreasing, washing, phosphatizing and an abrasive blasting step.

18. Method according to claim 15 or 16, wherein after having allowed the corrosion-inhibiting material to set the thickness of the layer of corrosion-inhibiting material is in the range of 10 to 30 m.

19. Method according to any one of claims 14 to 18, wherein the suspended particles of corrosion-inhibiting material further comprise a solid lubricant.

20. Method according to any one of claims 14 to 19, wherein at least the threaded portion of the pipe component after having allowed the corrosion-inhibiting material to set, is at least partly covered with a layer of a lubricant.

21. Method according to claim 19 or 20, wherein the lubricant is selected from the group consisting of molybdenum disulfide, tungsten disulfide, boron nitride, graphite, polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) and combinations thereof.

22. An assembly of at least two oil well pipes, which are mutually connected by means of a sleeve-shaped coupling member, wherein at least one of the assembling parts, preferably including the coupling member, is an oil well component according to any one of the preceding claims 1-13.

Description

[0038] The invention is elucidated by means of the following Figures, wherein

[0039] FIG. 1 schematically shows a threaded portion according to the prior art and

[0040] FIG. 2 shows such a threaded portion according to the invention.

[0041] FIG. 1 shows a cross-sectional view of a portion of a wall of an oil well pipe component 1 along the axis of the pipe component, to which a layer 2 of a corrosion-inhibiting material has been applied by means of spraying. It is shown how the layer 2 of the corrosion-inhibiting material has a varying thickness along the threaded portion. In particular, the flanks of the threads tend to have a thinner coating that the roots or the crests.

[0042] In FIG. 2 a similar oil well pipe component 3 is shown whereon a layer of corrosion-inhibiting material 4 has been deposited via cataphoresis. It is shown how the thickness of the layer of corrosion-inhibiting material is uniform along the entire threaded portion. The Figures show the difference in uniformity of the layer thickness, in particular on the flanks of the threaded portions.

[0043] The invention will be further elucidated by means of the following Examples.

EXAMPLE 1

[0044] A steel box member that is used as an oil well pipe component was in a known way degreased and washed and then phosphatized with manganese phosphate. Then the box member was immersed in a cataphoresis bath containing a commercial cataphoretic paint Cathoguard325 and subjected to cataphoretic deposition for about 3 minutes at a voltage of 250-380V. The coating was cured for about 50 minutes at 160 C. Subsequently, a layer of solid lubricant, comprising polytetrafluoroethylene was applied on the layer of corrosion-inhibiting material by spraying the inner threaded portion of the box member by means of a turbine producing a radial spray coating.

[0045] Via SEM (scanning electron microscopy) the thickness of the coatings on the threads was determined on the roots, the flanks and the crests of the threaded portion of the box member. The thickness was determined for both the layer of corrosion-inhibiting material and the solid lubricant. The results are shown in the Table 1 below, wherein the values represent the average of various measurements. The variation between the individual values of the thickness of the corrosion-inhibiting material on the flanks was about 4.5 m, there was virtually no variance on the crest, and the variance on the root was about 0.3 m.

TABLE-US-00001 TABLE 1 Thickness Thickness corrosion-inhibiting layer, m solid lubricant, m Flanks 23.2 17.3 Crest 23.7 29.7 Root 20.6 9.00

[0046] From the results it is clear that the thickness of the layer of corrosion-inhibiting material applied by cataphoresis is much more uniform than the layer of solid lubricant that is applied via spraying.

Comparative Example 1

[0047] For comparison reasons an oil well pipe component comprising a threaded portion was pretreated and phosphatized in the manner described in Example 1. The thus treated oil well pipe component was further coated with an epoxy-based corrosion-inhibiting coating according to the teachings of US 2008/129044 by means of spraying, which coating composition also comprised polytetrafluoroethylene as solid lubricant. The thickness of the corrosion-inhibiting coating was determined and the results of the average values are shown in Table 2.

TABLE-US-00002 TABLE 2 Thickness corrosion-inhibiting layer, m Flanks 19.9 Crest 84.0 Root 37.3

[0048] It was found that the thickness on the flanks, the crest and the root was not very uniform. Moreover, it was found that the variance of the coating on the flanks was about 6 m, the variance on the crest was about 12 m, and the variance on the root was about 3 m.

Example 2

[0049] The box member of Example 1 was placed in a salt spray chamber and subjected to salt spray tests for 1500 hours in accordance with ASTM B-177. The assessment of the degree of corrosion was determined in accordance with grades of ASTM D-610. According to this ASTM standard, the degree of corrosion is rated from 1 to 10, wherein the various grades represent certain percentages of corroded area, as indicated in Table 3 below.

TABLE-US-00003 TABLE 3 grade 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Area, % 0-0.03 0.03-0.1 0.1-0.3 0.3-1 1-3 3-10 10-16 16-33 33-50 50-100

[0050] Additional qualifications are given in accordance with the following scale:

TABLE-US-00004 S (spot) Corrosion localized in small areas G (general) Corrosion distributed randomly P (pinpoint) Corrosion present as little dispersed points H (hybrid) Corrosion can be a combination of any of the above cases

[0051] The threaded portion of one particular specimen showed the following corrosion after subjection to the salt spray tests for the duration as specified in Table 4.

[0052] For comparison purposes the box member of Comparative Example 1 was also subjected to this test. The results are also shown in Table 4.

TABLE-US-00005 TABLE 4 Corrosion grade, Corrosion grade, Duration, hrs Example 1 Comp. Example 1 48 9P 9P 168 9P 8G 336 9P 7G 504 9P 6G 552 9P 5P 960 9P n.d. 1224 8P n.d. 1512 7P n.d. n.d. = not determined

[0053] These results show that the threaded portion as protected by the layer of corrosion-inhibiting material and solid lubricant shows an excellent corrosion behavior. The results further show that the non-uniformity of the layers in the comparative example leads to more severe corrosion, despite the fact that the corrosion-inhibiting layer has a bigger thickness than the layer in Example 1.